Rising to darkness

by Lucia Guglielminetti

  We entered the hall where the girls and the boys gather, a sort of display for the clients, a place I was very acquainted with. I let my gaze peruse each of their faces, pretending to be captivated with the process, but nothing could have prepared me with the shock of recognizing Isabelle, my Isabelle, sitting on a coach with a weary smile on her face. I winced as if I had been stabbed, drawing the lady's and the other girls' attention despite myself: but, I immediately had the presence of mind to take my hand to my back and fake a fit.

  "Are you all right, sir?"

  I cleared my throat without knowing what was going to come out of my mouth a moment later. "Ja, ja, danke, unfortunately, I still feel the consequences of a bad fall from my horse a few days ago."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Would you please make yourself comfortable and give me your hat and cloak?" the maîtres said, staring at me in a way that unsettled me. I couldn't meet her gaze for she would have noticed my eyes, a trademark of my race. Hence, I thought it also wise not to wear my shades which were unique to us as well. Staring at the floor, I handed my garments over to her and went on to devote myself in the examination of the girls, but I realized she was looking at my white hands with excessive attention. Her thoughts, then, started to flash a dreadful warning signal. It was time to put an end to the sham. My Isabelle was still alive. Those bastards had tortured me for days and then tried to kill me not to avenge her death, but just for fun.

  I sprang with my usual speed to the door, turning the key to lock it and then tucking it in my pocket, triggering astonished shrieks from everybody. When I turned and fixed my eyes on my torturer, I saw her standing there, paralyzed with her purple mouth opened wide to form a funny "OH" in fear and surprise.

  I took off the wig and let it fall to the ground, then I loosened my hair and shook my head, revealing my fangs in a gruesome smile.

  "Good evening, Madame Lescaut, nice to see you. I’ve missed you a lot. What about you?"

  Every trace of color had left the woman's face. She groped blindly with her hands in search of the arm of the sofa and collapsed on it, as if her legs had given way.

  I heard a scream: Isabelle was staring at me with her hands covering her mouth and her eyes wide open, as if she had just seen a ghost.

  "Darling, come to me" I told her, but she didn't move. Her expression turned into confusion and then into rage.

  "You abandoned me," she said.

  I turned abruptly to Madame Lescaut and bored holes into her with my gaze. "Is that what you told her? That I was tired of her and I had left so that she would forget me while you tricked me into believing she was dead? The tortures I suffered at your hands weren’t the just vengeance for her suicide after all. They were just for fun. Really twisted, Madame. Worthy of a vampire. My compliments! Chapeau!"

  Isabelle turned abruptly towards her. "What did you do to him?"

  "Monsieur, Isabelle, let me explain...,” she mumbled. I could feel the terror running down her spine and trying to gain the upper hand, assured by the knowledge that I wouldn’t have done anything to her until she continued to speak.

  I sat on the sofa beside Isabelle, incapable of taking her eyes off me. The other girls who occupied seats on the sofa rose hastily and moved to the other side of the room. She would not stop caressing my face and my hair, looking like she had just found her long lost love again.

  "Please, Madame, explain yourself, we're all ears. Explain how you could trick me into believing that this girl was dead and then trapped me for three days in your filthy cellar, torturing me with the help of your lackeys, setting me on fire and, finally, throwing my remains into the Seine so that the fish could finish your job...”

  Suddenly, loud bangs on the door distracted us from our squabble.

  "Madame Lescaut! Why did you lock the door? Is everything all right?"

  I flew to her just to see her turn white again and hushed her by placing a finger to my lips, then I reached for the door and unlocked it. When the doors opened, spewing out my two old friends inside the room, I appeared behind them and locked the door again, trapping them inside too.

  "Pierre, Jean Claude, it's really delightful to see you both,” I said, savoring their stunned expressions.

  "You?!" they uttered in unison.

  "Just me! How do they say it? Long time, no see... Make yourselves at home; we were just having a little chat."

  I asked them to walk in front of me to the couches. Their expressions were worth filming, as if they had just been kicked in their balls.

  Isabelle stood up and walked to them with her face livid with rage. When she got to Pierre, she slapped him in his face with all her strength, then she came up to me and hugged me from behind, her eyes flashing with hate towards the people who had held me captive with their deception for so long. Some girls cheered while others were unable to suppress satisfied chuckles. At that moment, I loved what I was, I must confess. I had those people in my power; I was free to terrorize them to death with my supernatural abilities before killing them with my bare hands as I was planning on doing. I wanted them to suffer and I wanted them to see death coming from afar. I was the cat and they were the mice, tiny little mice facing a very hungry and playful big beast.

  "You bitch! You just couldn’t wait to fawn over your freak, couldn’t you?"

  Another sprint and I was just a few inches away from my guest's contorted face. I grabbed him by his neck and lifted him off the couch, leaving him to struggle for a while before throwing him to the opposite side of the room.

  "Didn’t I already tell you what happened to the last person who called me a freak? Apologize to the lady. Now!"

  In response, he spat on the floor, challenging me with his eyes.

  "You know, Pierre, I hate rude people."

  I pounced on his throat, impervious to the punches with which he tried to get me to let go, screaming. Panic exploded in the room. Everybody was screaming, many of the girls were trying to open the door, hammering it with theirs fists, but I had no intention of letting the man, who continued to struggle and to tear at my hair with his hand, go.

  "Watch out!" Isabelle shouted, and then screamed again when a dagger, fortunately not a silver one, pierced my back, causing me a dreadful stab of pain. The other man was behind me with an expression somewhere between terror and satisfaction. I jumped up and threw myself on him and, this time, I didn't stop until his heart told me so.

  "Everyone shut up!" I shouted. Those shrieks were getting on my nerves. I went towards Isabelle who was staring her me with her eyes wide open and with hands covering her mouth and asked her to pull the knife out of my back. All I got was a shake of the head.

  "Come on, I'm fine, it just bothers me a little bit..."

  "Bother...?"

  "Yes, it's nothing. Not like silver, isn't it true Madame? You're an expert on what vampires like or don’t like, aren't you?"

  The woman was still paralyzed in place, slumped on the couch, her messy makeup smeared on her swollen face, giving her a grotesque appearance. She couldn't even reply, not that I'd expected her to do so.

  "Come on, Isabelle. The knife!"

  She came towards me with some hesitation, took a long, deep breath, and grabbed the hilt of the knife, pulling slowly to extract it from my back and then letting it fall to the ground as if it was hot. I feared she would faint like the last time and helped her to sit down while my wound was already starting to heal. I tilted my head sharply to the left and to the right and my neck snapped, and then I turned to the girls, involuntary witnesses to what was happening. They were almost all in tears, huddled together by the door except for the infamous Alexis who had not move from her seat and was enjoying every detail of the spectacle with her eyes glittering with excitement. I should take her home to Seamus; who knows how much fun they would have together.

  "Listen to me now. I've nothing against you, you can leave. Go to your room and lock yourselves inside, but don't dare call the guy at the entrance, there's no use and it would not help ma
tters, you'd just make me more angry. Have I made myself clear?"

  I threw the key to Isabelle who let it drop to the floor, but she recovered quickly and bent down to pick it up. With extreme horror, I saw Pierre rising from the ground, grabbing the knife that had fallen beside him and hurling it towards Isabelle with a scream, piercing her stomach.

  "Die, bitch!" he shouted before I got to him and ripped off his head, which crashed against the wall with a horrendous thud.

  Shrieks filled the room once again, followed by the girls' desperate attempts to leave the room. There was blood everywhere, but I had eyes only for Isabelle. She was staring at me with her lips trembling, while the blood from her wound flowed profusely.

  "No, you're not going to leave me again!" I said, supporting her while her legs bent underneath her. In an instant, I realized what I had to do. I had already fed from two men; if I had to drink more blood, I'd feel sick, but I had to drain Isabelle to the point of no return, if I wanted to give her my blood and transform her, tearing her away from death. It was good that she was already bleeding a lot. I know that what I'm going to say will sound disgusting to most of you readers, it actually is, but I had to make some room in my stomach. So, I rammed two fingers down my throat to provoke vomiting and was able to puke most of the blood I had ingested. I absent-mindedly heard something heavy fall on the floor and noticed that one of the girls had just fainted. Judging from their expressions, the others didn't feel any better, but I had no time to worry about them. Thinking about it at a later time, I must say I found the whole thing quite funny. Vampire humor, I know.

  At that point, I concentrated on Isabelle's wound and drew the necessary amount of blood that I needed, then I slit my wrist and placed it to her mouth, inviting her to drink. She stared at me for a moment and looked like she wanted to thank me, then she grabbed my arm and started to suck vigorously until I detached her from it, ignoring her feeble protests. A complete silence had fallen in the room; all eyes were on us with shocked and accusatory glances. I lifted Isabelle into my arms and laid her down on the nearest sofa, then turned abruptly to Madame Lescaut, still paralyzed in her place.

  "I didn't forget about you, don't worry, Madame. Our dispute hasn’t been resolved yet, although, as you can see for yourself - I pointed to the bodies on the ground - we're making very good progress. I want to understand. I want to know why you made me believe that Isabelle was dead when she wasn't. I'm sure you were convinced that she was when we were in her room just after I drank her poisonous blood. Weren't you?"

  "We were, I assure you, monsieur. She had stopped breathing and I couldn't feel her heart beat. I was sure she had passed away, nobody has lied to you about that. In the afternoon, though, when we had already arranged her on the bed and kept vigil at her bedside, a miracle occurred and she woke up. She was fine, just a little confused, and asked about you incessantly, about where you were. Pierre loved her, monsieur, and couldn't stand that she was being touched by someone like you, the living dead. He thought the only way for her to forget you was by killing you, as we already had you under our power. I'm sorry, I did not agree with him if you remember. Do you remember that I tried, until the very last moment, to make you promise not to come back to exact revenge? I didn't want to hurt you, even when I thought that Isabelle had died because of you. As God is my witness, I'm telling you the truth, monsieur. Take my hand, read my mind. You won't find a single bad intention hidden in me, I swear.

  "I don't touch people unless it is absolutely necessary; let alone touch someone like you. Pierre and Jean Claude were your employees. You could have stopped them, why didn't you? Why didn't you dismiss them?"

  Tears started to fall again from the woman's eyes, but she didn't lower her gaze. "They weren't my employees, monsieur... They were my sons and you killed them both. That seems to be revenge enough?"

  Meanwhile, on the sofa, Isabelle was starting to groan, a sign that the transformation process was beginning. I stared at the woman for a while, probing her mind for lies or ulterior motives. I couldn't find any. Just despair, weariness, and resignation, as if she had always known, somewhere in her heart, that everything, eventually, would go that way. She was too exhausted even to hate me.

  "From tomorrow, this place will not reopen, you have just retired. You're going to give money to each of these girls and to the boys too, and you're going to help them find a place to live and a decent job. Do we understand each other, Madame Lescaut? If you give me any reason to repent my clemency, I assure you that I will come back and finish the job. Are we clear about that?"

  "Yes, monsieur, I understand. I had already thought about retiring myself. I’ve had enough of having so many problems, especially from clients like you. Now that I'm alone... nothing makes sense to me. Will you take care of Isabelle now that you have made her into one of you?"

  "She will be happy, at least more than she has been so far. Goodbye, Madame. Remember I'll be back to check."

  I turned with Isabelle in my arms and got out of that place which, for me, had meant so much suffering, heading home with my creation. I hoped that Shibeen and her brothers would be sympathetic both to me and to her.

  16 - DEATH LESSONS

  The welcome I received when we got home wasn't the one I had hoped for. Shibeen immediately started to shout, then she went to her rooms and slammed the door behind her with such force that it vibrated for several seconds in the frame. I chose to ignore her and took refuge in my room with Isabelle in the grip of the pain caused by her rebirth. The transformation took about three days: three days of screams, fluids leaking out of her body staining the covers and pain, pain, pain. I stayed with her most of the time, unable to do much to soothe her suffering, intrigued by the process I was witnessing for the first time through all its phases. At sunset of the third day, when I rose from my coffin, I found Isabelle awake in my bed. She was still and had the surprised look of someone who was observing the world with brand new eyes. A clean dress on the chair next to the bed proved that Shibeen had slipped inside to take a look and had - maybe - forgiven me.

  "Hello, dear. How do you feel?" I asked, approaching with caution. What if she had changed her mind in the meantime and hated me for having transformed her?

  "What happened to me?" she asked in her new voice, much purer than before. Everything about her had changed, although her features were basically the same. She had become a beautiful vampire. Even at that moment, with her blond hair tousled and a wild look in her eyes, even bluer than before but with the snake-like pupil, you could glimpse in her the absolute beauty that would later reveal its full splendor.

  "You were hurt, remember? You were about to die and... I made you like me. You're a vampire now and nothing can ever change your being."

  She kept silent and stared at me for a long time. I got nervous, but I hoped that the reason for it was her bewilderment for all the new details her new vision enabled her to grasp and not the desire to tear me to pieces with her hands. Newborn vampires are very strong and unstable for a while. You must handle them with the same caution you'd use with nitroglycerine.

  "I'm dead," she said.

  It was a statement, not a question.

  I gave her a simple nod.

  She sat up with amazing speed and I stepped back for safety. Not that I was scared, not exactly, but I didn't know how to behave. It was the first time I created a vampire and could just rely on my personal experience, based on what Shibeen had done with me. I held out my hand to invite her to follow me in front of the mirror, just as my maker had done with me when my moment came. She looked at her reflection as if she was seeing herself for the very first time. In some way, it was true. Eventually, she took it and got up. She was completely naked but it didn't seem to embarrass her; rather, she gave me an amazing smile and, with a kind of pirouette, she threw herself on me, her breast pressing against me and her knee teasing me in very sensitive areas. That's when Shibeen decided to come in to get acquainted with her guest with a perfect sense o
f timing. She froze in the doorway, her eyes like erupting volcanos and her fangs bared in a dreadful snarl.

  "I see that we are having a good start!" she hissed. "Raistan, this would be your little whore?"

  Isabelle blew like a cat and was about to throw herself against her, but I got in the middle and held her back. If she wanted she could have gotten rid of me with a flick of a finger, but she wasn't aware of her skills and behaved like a normal woman rather than a vampire, allowing me to stop her.

  "Easy, Isabelle, easy. Let's see if we can start at the beginning. This is Shibeen, she's my maker, a very ancient vampire, and you must respect her, ok?"

  "There’s no fucking way I'm going to respect her! She called me a whore! I won't allow anyone to do that ever again, not in this life."

  I brought my face closer to hers, threatening: "Let's clear up one thing right away. I'm your maker and you must obey me. Do you understand?"

  No response, just those eyes throwing flames over my shoulder in the direction of her opponent. I took her chin between my fingers and forced her to look at me. Hierarchies had to be clarified, mainly for her own good. I knew a vampire who got himself in trouble from the very first night of his new condition...

  "Do you understand, Isa? Answer me."

  Her reply was throwing herself on me once again and passionately kissing me, just for the exclusive benefit of my rabid maker. I had to reject her before Shibeen lost control and tore her to pieces. The only being stronger than a newborn vampire is an ancient one like her or like Vincent. With difficulty, I tore her away from me and hit her with a backhand. It was the first time I had hit a woman and I didn't like it, intensifying my anger.